I checked the 155 most-starred TS/Python/Rust/Go repos for root agent memory files. 43% have one. Median is roughly compliant with Anthropic’s “keep it short” guidance. But Bun’s is 75k characters, and OpenClaw’s is 7x the median in tokens. (And 50% above the recommended limit and arguably “cheats” with compression per line). The orthodox take: big files are wrong - bloat causes Claude to ignore instructions, context rot research backs it. But the biggest files belong to the most agent-native teams. OpenClaw is substantially run by agents, and most of its bulk is verification gates that read like scar tissue from agents hallucinating. Who’s right? Post with the data: https://blume.codes/blog/we-scored-the-claudemd-files-of-the-biggest-open-source-projects-the-best-ones-break-the-rules submitted by /u/blumeCodes
Originally posted by u/blumeCodes on r/ClaudeCode